Insert Coin to Continue

by John David Anderson

  “Um . . . right . . . okay. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” he said, reading what had just appeared.

  Gina Ramirez took her cue from Ms. Zinn and continued, saying something about names and roses and smells. Bryan was only half listening. His eyes grew big again as new blue type appeared on his page.

  THE CUTE GIRL ASKS YOU YOUR NAME. DO YOU

  A. TELL HER YOU ARE ROMEO?

  B. TELL HER TO MIND HER OWN BUSINESS?

  C. TELL HER TO CALL YOU LOVE?

  Bryan looked at Gina, then at Ms. Zinn, then back at the book. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the middle one, and the first seemed entirely too straightforward for Shakespeare, who, Bryan knew, liked to drag things out for no apparent reason. He touched the C, and several more lines appeared. Something about drinking, ears, and the word “love,” like, fifty more times. Bryan read them out loud cautiously, scanning ahead, occasionally glancing at Ms. Zinn to see if she noticed anything out of the ordinary, to see if he had chosen correctly, but she wasn’t even looking at her book. It lay closed on the desk beside her. In fact, she was staring out the window at the parking lot and the gray clouds gathering above it, caught up in the moment or lost in thought or maybe planning her weekend. Bryan wasn’t sure she was even listening. He wasn’t sure anyone was listening. Gina stumbled over a line, not daring to take her own eyes from the page.

  “I would not for the world they saw thee here,” she said.

  Bryan looked back at his book.

  THE HOTTIE ON THE BALCONY BEGS YOU TO LEAVE, AFRAID THAT HER KINSMEN WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU. DO YOU

  A. TELL HER THAT MAKES SENSE? SHE’S JUST A GIRL YOU MET AT A PARTY, AFTER ALL, AND HARDLY WORTH DYING FOR.

  B. MAKE SOME LONG-WINDED, NOBLE SPEECH ABOUT DEATH AND LOVE AND ALL THAT?

  C. TELL HER FAMILY TO SHUT UP AND BRING IT, ALREADY? YOU’LL FACE THE WHOLE LOT OF THEM.

  It had to be B, Bryan knew. That’s the way Willy would have wanted it.

  And yet.

  Bryan looked at Ms. Zinn, still staring out the window. Looked over at the rest of the class, some of them nodding off, others only pretending to follow along as they doodled in the margins of their books. Looked at Gina, whose face was red with concentration or embarrassment or both.

  He made his choice.

  Romeo’s lines appeared. Bryan cleared his throat and read them, uncertainly at first, but then with growing confidence.

  “ ‘For thy love, I wouldst now face a thousand blades. / And slay each man who would our path detour. / And so let the name Montague ring out. / And challenge all who would our union bar.’ ”

  Bryan looked over at Gina, who quickly glanced down at her book. Her face creased, as if she’d just seen something strange, a typo or a line out of place. She puzzled over it for a second and then finally she read: “ ‘Some noise stirs within. Dear love, be gone. / Thy shout has awakened all our armored host, / Who bear down on thee, thy blood to spill. / Fly now or all our future days be lost.’ ”

  Bryan saw a strange look pass briefly over Ms. Zinn’s face as well. She suddenly turned away from the window and looked from Bryan to Gina, then back again. He was sure she was going to say something. Ask him to stop. Or to read the last part again. Or to show her his book. Or to go to the principal’s office. Any of these seemed likely.

  Instead she simply said, “Well? Come on? Keep reading!”

  Bryan glanced back down. The writing had changed from black to blue again.

  THE GARDEN IS SUDDENLY FILLED WITH CAPULETS. THEY SEE YOU AND CRY FOUL, CHARGING WITH BLADES DRAWN. DO YOU

  A. DECIDE THAT NO CHICK IS WORTH ALL THIS AND FLEE?

  B. PLEAD WITH THE DAME’S FAMILY TO HEAR YOUR SIDE OF THE STORY?

  C. DRAW YOUR SWORD AND FACE DEATH IN TRUE LOVE’S NAME?

  Bryan’s finger hovered over the first option. After all, they had him surrounded. Let Juliet marry some man named after a French city and be done with it. Then again, this was supposed to be Shakespeare, so death was kind of a foregone conclusion. Might as well go down swinging. Bryan chose answer C, and new lines of black type bubbled up onto the page. He grinned as he read, spitting out the words.

  “ ‘Have at thee, then, you curs, you scoundrels. / Taste cold steel and bandy blades o’er words. / Though you may share the name of true love’s rose, / You’ll e’en share the blood picked from its spiteful thorns!’ ”

  From her place at the desk, Ms. Zinn clapped her hands. Her eyes sparkled. She looked back and forth from Bryan to Gina, waiting breathlessly. Bryan heard the rustle of pages as a few of the other students suddenly grew interested, opening their books, trying to find their place. “Well?” Ms. Zinn asked. Her book still lay closed beside her, but she made no move to open it. Bryan wondered what hers would even say. “What happens next?”

  Bryan looked at Gina, who shrugged. He cleared his throat.

  “It says, ‘Enter Mercutio . . . the ninja.’ ”

  There was a murmur in the class. Bryan waited for Ms. Zinn to say something about there not being any ninjas in Romeo and Juliet. Instead she pointed to a boy in the second row. “Michael, you be Mercutio.”

  “Sweet,” Michael said.

  “Well, what are you all waiting for?” Ms. Zinn egged them on. “Keep reading. This is the exciting part.”

  “Um. Okay,” Michael said, scanning down the page, looking a little confused but playing along, doing what he was told. “Uh, let’s see here. . . . ‘Brother, we are outnumbered ten to one, / Or ten to two, though I do run where others walk / And Capulets do crawl, and with one flick / Of finger scratch a dozen cats and send / Them chasing o’er tails. Have at you!’ ”

  Someone in the back of the class gasped. Michael made some motion with his hand, as if he were actually wielding an imaginary sword, brandishing it about in the face of a wave of snarling Capulets. Bryan took his cue and thrust with his own imaginary sword, then stopped to read: “ ‘One, two, three more slain. / My blade is tipsy having drunk the blood / Of so many cowardly Capulets. / See now, how e’en darkness has its due. / And blots the moon as Tybalt comes to dance.’ ”

  “Tybalt! Tybalt! Who’s Tybalt?” Ms. Zinn fluttered impatiently, leaping up off her desk now and pacing back and forth.

  “I will be,” a boy named Rodrigo said, raising his hand.

  “Then read! Come on. Let’s have it!”

  Rodrigo read his line with a menacing growl. “ ‘Wretched boy, grave injuries you have caused / With sharpened tongue and steel. But words nor swords / Can shield you from my dragon’s sharpened claws.’ ”

  Bryan checked his book and his eyebrows shot up.

  TYBALT, JULIET’S COUSIN, ENTERS RIDING ON A GIANT BLACK DRAGON SPOUTING FIRE. DO YOU

  A. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE?

  B. USE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF ARCANE MAGIC TO SUMMON THE FAIRY OBERON TO DEFEND YOU?

  C. LET THE DRAGON EAT MERCUTIO, THEN SLAY IT AND ITS RIDER WHILE IT’S DISTRACTED?

  “You’re riding a dragon?” Bryan said, looking over at Rodrigo, who just shrugged, as if to say, Guess so. Granted, Bryan had never read Romeo and Juliet before or seen any movie versions, but he was pretty sure there weren’t any ninjas or dragons in it. But if any of his classmates noticed, they didn’t care. Maybe this was all part of whatever it was that was happening to Bryan. Or maybe they were just glad that Shakespeare’s play had finally gotten interesting. That certainly seemed to be the case with Ms. Zinn.

  “Ooh, a dragon,” she whispered, eyes like saucers. “Exciting!”

  Bryan looked over his options for dealing with the dragon, then glanced at Michael. “Sorry, man,” he said.

  “Sorry for what?” Michael said. Then he looked down at his own book. “Oh.”

  Michael threw his hands into the air and pronounced, “ ‘Alas, am I to be a dragon’s meal, / A morsel, tidbit, trifle to the last? / The teeth. The claws. ’Tis more than just a scratch. / A plague on both your houses! I am slain.’ ”

 
; “ ‘And I am slain!’ ” Rodrigo/Tybalt said, clutching at his heart.

  “ ‘We are all slain!’ ” said the rest of the class in unison, picking up seamlessly on their cue, mimicking the voices of a dozen Capulets, supposedly skewered at the tip of Romeo’s sword.

  “ ‘And we are still in love,’ ” Bryan and Gina said together. Then Bryan glanced down at his text to see the stage directions.

  ROMEO and JULIET kiss.

  He looked up at Gina. Forced a smile.

  “We can probably skip that part,” he said.

  She nodded, maybe a little too emphatically. Bryan looked back at his script.

  The slain bodies of MERCUTIO, TYBALT, and other CAPULETS begin to stir.

  What the heck does that mean? Bryan thought. Then Gina broke in with the next line.

  “ ’O Romeo, we must depart,’ ” she cried, suddenly caught up in the moment, or maybe just relieved at the not kissing. “ ’The sickness boils in our kinsmen’s blood. / And soon, though soul be split from flesh and heart, / Still flesh will rise anew, but viler still, / To walk the night. And so we must make haste. / For I can sense the rotten carcass rise.’ ”

  Suddenly Mercutio’s voice piped in. “ ’To eat the brains of those we now despise,’ ” he said, doing his very best zombie imitation, hands stretched out and everything.

  Exeunt.

  There was silence.

  Bryan just sat there.

  Apparently, act 2, scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet ended with the two lovers fleeing for their lives from a pack of reanimated corpses. Gina had a horrified look on her face. Most of the other kids in class looked confused, though a few of the boys seemed genuinely impressed. Bryan closed his book quietly.

  Ms. Zinn smoothed out her short plaid skirt with both hands.

  “That was . . . ,” she began, giving pause for Bryan to fill in all the possibilities—ludicrous, insane, just wrong.

  “Exhilarating,” she finished. “Thank you, everyone, for your impassioned reading. Especially you, Mr. Biggins. Well done.” Then she turned to the board and began to scrawl something in chalk.

  Above her head Bryan watched the letters appear, just as they had last period with Mr. Tennenbaum.

  +50 XP.

  For winning Juliet’s heart while killing her entire family and slaying her cousin’s dragon. For being willing to sacrifice Romeo's best friend, Mercutio—the ninja—just so he could get the girl. For slogging through Shakespeare in second-period English. Fifty experience points.

  Ms. Zinn turned around, still beaming. “Now for the rest of the class, I’d like you to get out your notebooks and write about why you think Shakespeare chose the zombie apocalypse as an appropriate backdrop for his tragic love story, and how the walking dead act as a metaphor for our own inhumanity.”

  Bryan heard her words, but he wasn’t really listening.

  He was staring at the blue letters, already starting to fade, thinking that reading Shakespeare had taught him two things this morning.

  First: People did crazy, stupid stuff for love.

  And second: Whatever it was he was supposed to do to make this all go away, he needed to do it quick before things really got out of control.

  10:27 a.m.

  Lounge Raider

  By the time second period ended, Bryan had written exactly one sentence in his reader response journal. It had nothing to do with true love or zombies or inhumanity. It simply said, “What is happening to me?”

  He didn’t have an answer.

  In an hour he could talk it over with Oz. That was what they’d said. Wait to see if things resolved themselves, and if not, they would work through them together. Or seek professional help. Things certainly hadn’t resolved themselves. If anything, they had gotten more complicated. Gym was only one period away. But first Bryan had to get through detention.

  He opened Mr. Tennenbaum’s door as the stragglers in the hall behind him shuffled past, hoping that maybe the math teacher would be acting normal.

  “Shut the door, my son.”

  So much for that.

  Bryan stood in the doorway and stared at the man, sitting at his desk, huddled over a stack of papers. The blinds had been closed, and all but one row of fluorescent lights had been turned off, draping Mr. Tennenbaum in a pool of sickly yellow and casting his shadow along the wall. He had his back turned, but even from the doorway Bryan could tell what the math teacher was doing. The fog around him was thick. The smell overpowering.

  “Are you smoking? In school?”

  Tennenbaum spun in his desk chair and squinted at Bryan. A pipe hung from the corner of his mouth, billowing up tendrils of white smoke. The math teacher stroked his unwieldy salt-and-pepper—predominantly salt—beard.

  “Please, Master Biggins,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “I asked you to close the door.”

  Master Biggins? That was a first.

  Bryan rolled his eyes but did what he was told. He was already firmly planted on Tennenbaum’s bad side. “I’m pretty sure you can’t do that here,” he said, pointing at the pipe.

  Mr. Tennenbaum took the pipe from his mouth, regarded it for a moment as if it were some strange artifact he’d just unearthed, then stuck it back in its corner with a considerable huff. “And I am fairly certain that I shall do whatever I wish.” The math teacher manufactured an impressive white ring and watched it dissolve in the air between them. “I trust you are here to atone?”

  Atone? That didn’t sound good. Apparently, Tennenbaum was going to make a big deal out of this. “Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry about being late to class, and I promise I won’t do it again, but I’m having this really strange morning, and I thought, if it was all right with you—”

  “Silence!” Tennenbaum roared, causing Bryan to take a step back, pressing up against the door. The math teacher held the bowl of his pipe, pointing the gnawed black tip at Bryan. “This is no time to blabber about, boy. There is important work to be done. A task has been set before you.”

  A task. Terrific. Bryan was going to spend the next hour cleaning erasers or sorting papers. Or something worse. Tennenbaum motioned for Bryan to come closer. The smell of smoke wove its way through the room, pungent and acrid, stinging Bryan’s eyes. The math teacher opened the top drawer of his desk and fished out a black cloth pouch, barely large enough to get his hand into. He dug with two fingers and plucked out a handful of quarters. Bryan shuddered. The last thing he wanted to see right now was more coins.

  “Six pieces of silver,” Tennenbaum said. “You will need them to unlock the treasure.”

  Bryan looked at the coins. Were these quarters he was supposed to use to continue? Did Tennenbaum know what was going on? And what did he mean by “treasure”? He tried to sum up all these questions with a “Say what now?”

  “You must journey to the room that is forbidden to those of your kind,” Tennenbaum continued, his voice scratchy with phlegm. “The sanctuary beyond the hall. Where the elders gather in repose.”

  Bryan shook his head. Sanctuary? Elders? Forbidden to his kind? “You mean the teachers’ lounge?”

  Tennenbaum nodded sagely, setting the quarters on the desk between them. “There you must retrieve the cake of gold from its prison of glass.”

  “Cake of gold,” Bryan repeated, even more bewildered.

  The math teacher put up a crooked finger. “But beware. The path will be fraught with danger. The Eye of Krug is watching.”

  Eye of Krug . . . Eye of Krug . . . Bryan wracked his brain. Did he mean Amy Krug? One of the hall monitors? She was known to patrol during third period. And she wore thick glasses. “You could just give me a hall pass, you know . . . ,” Bryan began.

  The math teacher fixed him in a stern gaze. “You must go unarmed!” he insisted. “I can grant you no protections, offer you no wards. You will not need your pack.” Tennenbaum pointed to Bryan’s backpack. “And know that the vault itself is not unguarded. Within it sit three creatures of the most hideou
s disposition. Reynolds, Wang, and Baylor-Tore.” Tennenbaum practically hissed the names.

  Bryan repeated them in his head. “Mrs. Reynolds the music teacher?”

  “They are not to be trusted,” Tennenbaum warned. “Do not fall victim to their web of lies.”

  Bryan laughed. This had gone from bewildering to ridiculous. Whatever Mr. Tennenbaum had put in that pipe, it had obviously shot straight to his brain and done some rearranging of what it found there. Bryan put his hands on the math teacher’s desk. “Listen, Mr. Tennenbaum, I know I screwed up, and I can’t keep coming in late to class. And I’m more than happy to sit here and do extra math problems or help you grade quizzes or whatever, but don’t you think this is a little, you know . . .”

  “Dangerous?” Tennenbaum finished, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

  “I was going to say ‘silly.’ ” Actually, he was going to say “stupid,” but thought that might be pushing it.

  The math teacher’s eyes widened. “The cake of gold must not be broken. Only once it is returned, pure of form and devoid of imperfections, will you be free to continue on your path.” Then he stuffed the pipe back between his lips and nodded again, leaning back and half closing his eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I have spoken,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be easier if you just took the money and went down to the teachers’ lounge yourself—”

  “I HAVE SPOKEN!” Mr. Tennenbaum roared, lunging forward and slamming a fist on his desk, nearly causing his half-empty coffee cup to topple off the corner.

  “Right,” Bryan whispered, adding “pushy old fart” so low that Tennenbaum couldn’t hear. Then he scooped up the quarters, stuffed them in his pocket, and slowly backed away as another ring of smoke drifted lazily between them.

  “Remember the Eye of Krug. Beware the guardians three. Return with the cake of gold,” Tennenbaum chanted as Bryan walked backward through the room.

  “Eye of Krug. Guardians three. Cake of gold. Total nutcase,” Bryan whispered. He escaped through the door and took a much-needed breath of fresh air, the smell of tobacco lingering in his nose, the clink of six quarters jangling in his pocket.